Damage Control

third one took videos of the whole thing.”

Jonathan inhaled forcefully through his nose and held the breath in for a few seconds. There were levels of cruelty that he just could not comprehend. He got the panicked shooting that happened in the bus after the assault started back there at the drop site. He didn’t endorse it, but he understood it as if I’m dying I’m taking you with me. But to humiliate someone in the most brutal way like that made no sense to him at all.

If nothing else went right with this mission, at least he could rest comfortably that he’d increased the population in Hell.

“Those are some pretty ugly pictures to have swimming in your head,” Jonathan said.

“Tell me about it.”

“I am,” Jonathan said. “When you get back to the World, people aren’t going to want to hear those stories, but you’re going to need to tell them. Make sure you find yourself a good shrink.”

Tristan seemed anxious to push that topic aside. “So, how long will it be before I’m home?”

“A day or two,” Jonathan said. It was a flat-out guess, but he’d have a plan soon, and when that happened-

His earbud popped. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.”

“Ten bucks says this isn’t good,” Boxers grumbled.

Tristan cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

Jonathan pointed to his chest so that Tristan could see him press his transmit button. “Go ahead,” he said.

“I just got an alert from ICIS,” she announced. Jonathan knew that she was referring to the Interstate Crime Information System, pronounced EYE-sis, a post-9/11 invention that tracked criminal investigations in real time, in hopes of encouraging better communications between law enforcement agencies. “You know I always put tracers on your aliases and your real names whenever you go out on an op. If you blow your cover, then I want to be the first to know about it.”

Boxers grumbled, “Just once in her life, that woman is going to get straight to the point.”

“Well, that tracer just paid off. Leon Harris and Richard Lerner have both been accused of murder,” she said. Those were Jonathan’s and Boxers’ aliases, respectively. “It says here that the charges were filed by Mexican authorities as a result of thirteen murders you committed today. They even list the names of the victims. Names I don’t recognize-I assume they’re the terrorists-and the dead hostages, too.”

Boxers said on the air, “That’s not possible. The bodies are still warm.”

“I’m just reporting what I see, Big Guy,” Venice said. “Interpol is involved. The borders are closed to you. The FBI has pledged to do everything in their power to bring you in. You’ll need to switch to alternative identities.”

Jonathan and Boxers looked at each other, and in unison they said, “Shit.”

Jonathan keyed the mike. “That’s a problem, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said.

“You left them in the captured vehicles, didn’t you?” Venice was very good at connecting those kinds of dots.

“That’s affirm. We’ll need more to make the crossing.”

A long silence followed. In his mind, Jonathan could see the concern in her face, the eye creases that always appeared in her flawless chocolate-brown skin when she was worried. Jonathan gave her a lot of cause to worry. “This is really, really bad,” she said.

How artfully understated. “Thanks, Mother Hen,” he said. “I’ll get back to you. Keep us informed as things change, and find me a good forger in Mexico.”

“Who’s Mother Hen?” Tristan asked. He leaned forward in the backseat so that his head was closer to theirs.

“I need you to be quiet for a few minutes,” Jonathan said. To Boxers, he said, “This is a problem.”

“Yes, it is,” Boxers agreed. “And I have every confidence that you’ll devise the perfect plan.” He waited a beat. “Have I ever told you how much I enjoy our times together?”

Jonathan looked out his side window at the passing jungle, trying to force the pieces to fit. “Assuming all the names are correct, how did anybody know we were going to kill the guards?” he asked Boxers.

“Because they forced our hand,” Big Guy replied. Jonathan guessed that they’d been thinking the same thoughts-not an unusual occurrence after the number of years they’d worked side by side.

“That’s right,” Jonathan agreed. “By firing that first shot and killing the driver, they guaranteed that the guards would have to die. More to the point, they guaranteed that you and I would be the ones to kill them. You can’t pin the title of murderer on somebody without some bodies to point to.”

“You mean that wasn’t you who shot the driver?” Tristan asked.

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Jonathan said, his patience thinning. As a rule, the precious cargo was not a part of strategy sessions.

“Then who?” Tristan pressed. He retreated, though, from whatever flashed behind Jonathan’s eyes.

“They haven’t even had time to find the bodies,” Boxers said. “This whole thing has been a setup.”

Jonathan closed a loop in his mind. “What do you bet that the second ambush-the one we didn’t walk into-was all about taking us into custody?”

“And how the hell did they know about Leon Harris and Richard Lerner?” Boxers pressed. He gave a bitter laugh. “I almost admire the guy who set it up. I’ll be sure to tell him when I blow his brains out.”

Jonathan didn’t respond to that. He wished sometimes that the Big Guy would be less harsh in the presence of others.

“What about the PC?” Boxers asked, tossing a glance back at Tristan. “We gonna drag him along to a forger? Seems like a lot of extra exposure.”

Jonathan winced. Big Guy had a point. The mission was to repatriate the hostage-the one who still lived-with his family. For whatever reason, it appeared that Mexico had declared war on Jonathan’s and Boxers’ aliases. The shortest distance between right now and repatriation couldn’t possibly include a side trip to some forger’s outfit.

“Maybe we can find a church somewhere,” Jonathan said. “With the ransom money, we can make a hell of a donation. Maybe big enough to handle the repatriation.”

But man, oh man, he didn’t like the thought of it. When the stakes were this high, delegation to others always felt like a mistake.

“I think you might want to think that through a little more thoroughly,” Big Guy said. Clearly, he didn’t delegate well, either.

“I’m not getting handed off to anybody,” Tristan said. “I’m only hearing a little bit of this stuff, but if I just heard something about handing me over to a church, I’ll tell you right now that that’s not happening.”

“Look, kid-” Boxers said.

“The name’s Tristan. T-R-I-S-T-A-N. And from this point on, I’m hanging with you guys-the people who have at least as many guns as the terrorists do. You just need to know that.”

Jonathan smiled. He admired attitude from people in general, and hearing it vented against Boxers was doubly entertaining. The kid-Tristan-felt exactly the way Jonathan would have if he’d been in that position.

“There are a lot of decisions that lie between here and there,” Jonathan said in an attempt to defuse things.

Where the hell had the authorities gotten ahold of their aliases? Add that to the fact that the bad guys had known exactly where the drop-off was going to be made, and it all became very perplexing.

Was it possible that Reverend Jackie Mitchell was somehow in on this? Was there any conceivable reason why she would jam him up? Could that even make sense? No, he decided, it couldn’t. Jonathan wasn’t so naive as to think that members of the clergy were beyond heartless schemes to collect money or gather power-the Crusades, anyone?-but the risk to the children, and the deaths of the chaperones was beyond the pale, even for the worst. Even Jonathan’s cynicism had its limits.

If not the Crystal Palace, then who? If he hadn’t been betrayed by the good guys, then by process of elimination, he’d been betrayed by the bad guys. They were the only other people who knew the details of the ransom exchange. He still couldn’t imagine how they’d known his alias, but at least the location part was plausible. And the bad guys would certainly know the names of the hostage takers. Just as they would know the names of the